THE BIG BANGS
(C)1993 Alan M. Schwartz
That space, time and their contents erupted from a rupture called
the Big Bang is modestly well accepted. A fusion of Relativity,
quantum mechanics and a very few pliant parameters - quantum
chromodynamics - models within a fractional relative percent
cosmic abundances of the various light isotopes, the large scale
distribution of matter in the visible universe, and the bark of
the Big Bang now cooled to a 2.7 kelvin blackbody isotropic
(within a few parts-per-million) microwave whisper. The mass-
energy density times the presumed dimensions of reality versus
its gravitational potential sum to zero within experimental
error, implying that the total of everything is nothing at all.
This is a pleasant closure, although that content is only 10% of
net stuff necessary to bring the expansion of space-time to an
asymptotic halt. Existence appears to possess negative curvature
across four dimensions. There is plenty of elbow room in a
hyperbolic geometry! Entropy's arrow will always delineate past
and future. A minor problem is that the Big Bang does not work.
Where is the anti-matter equal in measure to the matter universe?
When energy becomes matter all conservation laws are obeyed. A
photon bears a radially diminishing halo of virtual leptons whose
evanescence is born of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.
Visible light bears about 2.5 eV/c^2. If a photon with energy
more than twice the rest mass of an electron (511 KeV/c^2) were
to graze an atomic nucleus, the intense electric field would
finance virtuality into reality. The photon would vanish. An
electron-positron pair would appear. Mass-energy, charge, spin,
linear and angular momentum... all the stuff of physics is
conserved. Physicists allude to subtle asymmetries in Charge-
Parity-Time conservation, frantically waving their hands to
rationalize an inhomogeneity far to the right of the decimal
necessary to leave a net scum of matter vs. anti-matter after the
Big Bang.
Why postulate a solitary Big Bang? Rather than a singularity
brought forth, we would expect a pair of singularities to balance
the cosmic books. The matter went to the (multi-dimensional)
right, the anti-matter went to the (multi-dimensional) left, all
hell broke loose at the (multi-dimensional) interface, and then
things proceeded to expand, cool and settle down. Perhaps we may
even dispose of the interface. Did the other Cosmic Egg not
merely voyage Elsewhere, but also Elsewhen?
A dual Creation possesses a pleasing symmetry reflected in the
mirror symmetry of the shape of space. There is matter and anti-
matter; positive and negative charge; and vortices swirling
clockwise or counterclockwise whether they are material flow, the
sense of twist of nucleic acid helices, or the stuff of radiant
polarization. Molecules possessing identical atomic connectivity
may superimposable, or be left-handed and right-handed in the
manner of all the natural amino acids save glycine. Nature
itself seems to prefer either radial symmetry for its simpler
organisms or bilateral symmetry for its more complex ones. There
are reproductions by fission, parthenogenesis, and boys and
girls. No organism assembles three sets of gametes into a
zygote. It is not obvious how to formulate a self-consistent
description of a physical system that is both irreducibly simple
and not equivalent to pairs of opposing dimensions.
Religion launches a hissy fit when its Hairy Thunderer(')s(')
prerogatives succumb to engineering. Its god(s) are a given
Truth pristinely isolated from the philistine trespasses of
thinking men, who must be converted or killed in the name of the
One True Faith. The territory is beset with competing salesmen.
How elegantly a paired Creation supports them in their claims!
We can rest assured that if indeed a singular Creation supports
One True Faith, a paired Creation supports Two. That simplifies
everything, doesn't it?
A last conjecture of some sustaining curiosity is the question of
whether the initial pair of Cosmic Eggs sustained sufficient
relative velocity to escape each other's gravitational influence.
If they flew apart there is no problem as long as their centers
of mass separate at least twice as fast (respecting Relativity)
as their peripheries expand. If they are maintaining stable and
distant orbit about each other in the manner of an electron-
positron pair there is no immediate problem though some distant
date may witness growing concern at their respective edges. Mass
density at the edge, whatever "edge" means, is sufficiently low
that matter/anti-matter annihilation will be a rare event. If
the Cosmic Egg and the Cosmic Anti-Egg eventually suffer dregs of
gravitational attraction drawing them together, we may be less
concerned with the Big Bang than with a very exciting epoch which
I choose to call Clobbering Time.